We thought we would start a fun competition for photography lovers…… Submit one to three images you take at our orchard during the UPick weekends, and there will be three FUN Prizes for the winners of 2012 Westwind Photography Contest. 1st prize 1 jar of our honey + 1/2 bushel of Mixed Squash. 2nd prize 1 jar of our honey + 1 Chocolate bar with our Raspberries. 3rd prize one day of hand weeding in our orchard…..just kidding…..1 jar of our honey. You can take your pictures with any kind of camera or smartphone, but you’ll need to submit them as low resolution jpegs to this email: westwindorchard@mac.com The judges will be: A Photographer 🙂 , a Stylist and a Creative Director. Above is a photo taken by Nancy Jo Iacoi, that inspired me to start this fun competition…. So, go ahead, give us your best shot!

We’re opening our new Apple/Honey barn Saturday Sept. 15th and will be open every Saturday and Sunday from 10am to 6pm through Sunday Oct. 14th, 2012. We have many new local and organic products and treats– including gelato and chocolate! Come say hi and enjoy!

We are very excited to be collaborating with Lazy Crazy Acres and creating tasty Gelato featuring our raspberries and honey! The flavors available are Westwind Honey Almonds and Westwind Raspberry. Come pick some up while supplies last!

Every time we plow a field, we uncover soooo many rocks….when we bought this property we were wondering how and why there were so many rock walls….AH now we know!!! Here is a funny example…Eric is making a hole for a post and he found a rock the size of the whole!

I love cover crops that help the fertility of the soil, suppress the weeds and our BEES go crazy with!!!! Yellow mustard is one of those cover crops, bees have been buzzing in that field non stop….but now it’s time to use it as green manure for the soil, and plant buckwheat. I’ll post an image of the field when it’s in bloom!!!!

Eric is been working for Westwind Orchard for 2 years now, his high energy this year is very contagious. He loves animals and so he doesn’t eat meat or fish, for this reason the importance of growing healthy food is a priority to him. Eric is a man of many talents and to just mention one, he’s a very skilled woodworker. His creations will be sold also at the Westwind Orchard Store this fall.

Where to start? My love for them and the work they put in to give us healthy fruit and veggies is unimaginable. Never in the world I would have thought I would become a beekeeper, well, it’s the best thing that happened to me!!! It’s been a learning experience, every minute I spend at the apiary. It is a privilege to be dealing and learning from them. There is a reason on every decision they make, and everything they do is for their SURVIVAL!!! We’ve had some losses through the years, but this winter was the biggest, 60% of our hives died, but looking at the positive note, the survivals are very very strong, and the way to propagate them is to split the strongest hives, and that’s what we are doing!!!

How exciting it is to see the orchard expanding and getting younger. We will have to wait a few years(at least 4) to start to see a noticeable crop on these trees, but it is worth the wait!!! We planted disease resistant rootstocks and apple varieties (Enterprise, CrimsonTopaz and CrimsonCrisp), we also planted Honeycrisp, less resistant but totally worth the try for their taste and crunchiness. My son Matteo convinced me to plant also Pears, so we explored this new field for me, planting 5 each of Olympic, Shinko, Bosc and Bartlett…they say Pears for their heirs, so Matteo these trees are for you!!!!